Mozilla today released Thunderbird 2, a major update to its free, open source email client. Thunderbird 2 allows users to easily manage and organize email with tags, advanced folder views, and fast inbox and message searches. Users can also customize Thunderbird 2 with add-ons that match individual preferences.

"Thunderbird 2 has powerful new features and proven security, delivering an improved email experience to users worldwide," said Scott MacGregor, lead engineer for Thunderbird at Mozilla. "In Thunderbird 2, we incorporated the proven benefits of tagging to email. Tagging initially gained popularity on blogs, photo and link-sharing sites as an intuitive way to organize online information so users could easily find desired content."

...I find t-bird to be more stable than Apple's Mail client. It has more features, altho' I wish tagging was as nice as MailTags. When Apple Mail has odd hesitations, or can't seem to download mail from an account, Thunderbird always could. It never hangs up on anything.

I just happened to be switching jobs and needed to download a mail client for the new job. Going from a corporate Outlook environment to a more open source shop I had the option of choosing. Also the new job is giving me a (slightly dated) macbook! So I setup mail, but was a bit saddened by the simplicity, having grown accustomed to some of outlook's more advanced features.
So I downloaded Thunderbird, not even realizing that this was a brand spanking new release. It's very nice, and the stability & performance seems good. I haven't been sending too many emails yet, so I can't say a lot yet.
One thing I have found disappointing is that the smart folders don't offer a search by date, where date is anything other than a static date. Even Mail allows for smart folders with "today", "yesterday", and "this week" or "last week" as options. These are very useful when going through a lot of emails that require research and response.
Altogether, a great product, as to be expected from the brother of Firefox._________________1.42 | 1GB | 80GB
20.1 Dell 2001FP
booting from FW 400GB ICY Dock

It still boggles my mind that people use OS dependent apps for E-mail when there are soooo many FREE web based clients that can be used from any web enabled device.

I can check my mail from ANY internet device in the world without having to carry around a laptop or maintain multiple repositories of mail.

I used to use Thunderbird way back in the day and it was definitely the best mail client available. But in an age where web based clients are so readily available for FREE I don't see the need for an OS dependent app for mail.

Plus, searching old mail is a million times easier on Gmail than any other client in the universe. Once you get used to not having to maintain an inbox and start using Labels efficiently, you'll feel the same way._________________â†’ craigerskine.comâ†’ qrayg.com

It still boggles my mind that people use OS dependent apps for E-mail when there are soooo many FREE web based clients that can be used from any web enabled device.

I can check my mail from ANY internet device in the world without having to carry around a laptop or maintain multiple repositories of mail.

I used to use Thunderbird way back in the day and it was definitely the best mail client available. But in an age where web based clients are so readily available for FREE I don't see the need for an OS dependent app for mail.

Plus, searching old mail is a million times easier on Gmail than any other client in the universe. Once you get used to not having to maintain an inbox and start using Labels efficiently, you'll feel the same way.

It still boggles my mind that people use OS dependent apps for E-mail when there are soooo many FREE web based clients that can be used from any web enabled device.

I have six different email addresses that I use regularly, and it's easiest to corral all of them in to one email client versus opening six different webmail services to access them all. I can keep one address book, one set of rules, and one place to find all my email.

It still boggles my mind that people use OS dependent apps for E-mail when there are soooo many FREE web based clients that can be used from any web enabled device.

I have six different email addresses that I use regularly, and it's easiest to corral all of them in to one email client versus opening six different webmail services to access them all. I can keep one address book, one set of rules, and one place to find all my email.

With that said, I really do appreciate some webmail services, like Gmail, in their ease of use, speed, and features.

It still boggles my mind that people use OS dependent apps for E-mail when there are soooo many FREE web based clients that can be used from any web enabled device.

I can check my mail from ANY internet device in the world without having to carry around a laptop or maintain multiple repositories of mail.

I used to use Thunderbird way back in the day and it was definitely the best mail client available. But in an age where web based clients are so readily available for FREE I don't see the need for an OS dependent app for mail.

Plus, searching old mail is a million times easier on Gmail than any other client in the universe. Once you get used to not having to maintain an inbox and start using Labels efficiently, you'll feel the same way.

I have a gmail account with forwarding set up to mail, it means I can use mail at home for its ease of use an general convenience, and check my mail from other computers too. best of both worlds! also, If i need to refer to something from a past email and i am not near a net connection, all I have to do is look in my mail inbox._________________mac mini coreduo 1.66ghz. 1.25gb 60gb HD
macbook pro 13inch 2.26ghz. 2gb. 250g HD

I have six different email addresses that I use regularly, and it's easiest to corral all of them in to one email client versus opening six different webmail services to access them all. I can keep one address book, one set of rules, and one place to find all my email.

With that said, I really do appreciate some webmail services, like Gmail, in their ease of use, speed, and features.

You know, you can check other email accounts from Gmail so they can all be in one place and be viewable from any web enabled device. I have 5 email accounts and they are all viewable in Gmail. Organization is all taken care of through Gmail by a couple of simple label filters. I didn't think that Gmail's searching would ever come in handy when I first started using it, but now, I can't live without it.

A few years ago I spent a couple hours and imported all of my email from my Thunderbird local mail (about 6 years worth imported from many different clients and OS's). Now I have all of my mail in a single area and it all works perfectly.

I even had some email + attachments from my ancient Amiga that I could never get to open correctly in any other email client. Gmail took it all and handled it perfectly.